> On Nov 3, 2016, at 9:46 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I had hoped my suggestion a while back of a Platonic cosmos pre-the Big Bang > (note: of course I completely agree with Clark that one shouldn't really > bring such very much later notions into the picture, which is why I used the > modifier "loosely" when I last referred to it--but what language do we have > to distinguish the early cosmos Peirce describes in the last lecture of the > 1898 Reasoning and the Logic of Things from this, our, existential one?) > contra a more Aristotelian cosmos once there exists a, shall we say, > particular three category semiosic universe might be helpful in moving this > discussion forward. So, my question: Are these two different? If so, how so? > If not, why not?
For Peirce the platonic forms clearly are potentialities. Much as in the Platonists you have forms becoming more differentiated or limited. To the Platonists this is emanation. While I’ll confess I don’t quite grasp the absolute transitions between the three worlds of Plotinus and related neoPlatonists it seems likely Peirce is following something similar. So for the Platonist the world of soul or spirit involves time and mediation and is roughly Peirce’s thirdness. Souls as moving essences generate the material and phenomenal world. It’s worth noting that there isn’t a single platonic view here. Rather there’s lots of related views of how to deal with the emanations. I’m quite sure Peirce had read Proclus, Plotinus and possibly Iamblicus and Pseudo-Dionysius. Yet as Soren mentioned Schelling also can’t be neglected here. Again his commentary on the Timaeus probably is relevant particularly for RLT. The simple view is that Peirce just recognizes the difference between possibility (treated as real in his mature thought) and actuality. Aristotle’s own universe is a tad more complex than you suggest since prime matter plays such an important role. And it’s this reconciling Aristotle and Plato with prime matter as pure differentiation that I confess I find interesting in Peirce. This is a matter (forgive the pun) Peirce doesn’t address much in his mature thought. It’s mainly in his earlier more Kantian period that it pops up. While I recognize people here don’t like him too much, I think that Derrida’s notion of différance is something he picks up out of Peirce’s conception of the symbol and ends up being this neoPlatonic/Aristotilean prime matter. In turn this becomes quite important for understanding type-token repetition which was such a concern in Continental Philosophy in the 50’s and 60’s. (Not just Derrida but also Deleuze and others) I bring this up because if we’re going to talk about the logical pre-material order we’re getting into places Peirce isn’t necessarily explicit (or at least clear). It’s also places where I think people have extended Peirce following his logic. In particular in thirdness within his mature phase we have to ask what differentiates the triadic parts enabling a triad? That sounds obvious and not important until one stops to think about it long. When the sign indicates its object by a hint that implies a space of some sort. Within temporal situated signs that’s partially due to time but there must a logical gap too or a spacing. So Peirce’s weather vane example functions because there’s a logical gap between the material vane and the wind. That difference always must precede the sign. This difference isn’t the nothing that Jon and Edwina are disputing. That’s a kind of positively acting potential of potentiality. (Roughly akin to the Platonic One) This difference is a logically previous ‘substance’ that must be there for signs to be signs. It’s prime matter or if we return again to the Timaeus it is pure logical space or receptical. (Khora) So before the big bang in its physical sense there must be possibility with the big bang in one interpretation merely being the event of actualization. (Especially if we consider it in a General Relativity conception as the emergence of a four dimensions block universe — of course things are trickier in quantum mechanics but then so too is the existence of a big bang) But this possibility must come from something so too must the place for the possibility to become actual. Again if we think of the big bang as the emergence of a four dimensional space ‘all at once’ then what is the place where this is able to appear? The possibility of possibility and the possibility of place must pre-‘exist’ the big bang. Which again is just the traditional Platonic story of the Timaeus by way of Aristotle. And again I’m not saying I agree with any of this. Although it is nice to know all that platonism I read back in the 90’s that had seemed pointless for so long is finally being worth something.
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